Wasting not
By Lys Morton Food banks in Canada find themselves playing a numbers game. In March 2019 alone, 2326 food banks across the nation recorded a total of 1,084,386 visits — down marginally from the previous year, but still a staggering statistic. Like other food banks, Nanaimo Loaves and Fishes has struggled to keep up with the demand. Founded in 1996, the organization initially used […]
Transition ambitions
By Patrick Wilson It’s 2020 and society is facing the reality of climate change. The effects can be felt daily around the world, including on Vancouver Island. Rising sea levels, heat waves, and other abnormal weather patterns are predicted by the B.C. government to continue. The outcomes feel closer than the 2050 date given. In […]
Living Green on a Budget
By Kristen Bounds It’s no secret that the planet needs and deserves our immediate attention (“climate emergency” was Oxford Dictionary’s word of the year in 2019), but it’s easy to feel helpless with the abundance of depressing information about the environment we receive every day. Many people respond by trying to adopt more sustainable habits […]
Thankful for wasps
By Margot Fedoruk Kat Shantikat of Gabriola Island lives with her black cat in a quaint house tucked along a network of forest trails. She enjoys daily hikes through the second-growth forest. On one of her walks, she found her first wasp nest. “I notice stuff and pick it up,” she says. Shantikat once saw another artist use wasp nest paper and it never left her. She […]
Treasures Above the Tide Line
By Rose Willow The spectacular beaches in the Parksville, BC area entice strollers and beachcombers with an array of driftwood, rocks, shells, sand, and seaweed. You’re not supposed to remove any of these items, so that others may enjoy the natural environment of the beaches, undisturbed, as well. However, if you find a small glass […]
The Hidden Waterfalls of Nanaimo
Story and photos by Spenser Smith In 2013, I moved to Nanaimo, British Columbia, a city full of winding streams and rivers. It was a big change from my home province of Saskatchewan, which has its own beauty, but not generally of the wet kind. In fact, all of Vancouver Island was a revelation. One […]
Run Maria, Run
By Maria Elsser My mother would get up every morning at 5 a.m. to run 10 kilometres along the sleepy streets of Salt Spring Island before the sun rose. It wasn’t enough that she was raising four wild children, or that she single-handedly ran a three-acre farm. It wasn’t like she had endless time at […]
Welcome to Utopia
By Kaleigh Studer A drop of water slithers down my spine and into the crevice of my lower back. The brain freeze has worn off from my icy dip. The sun is striking my porcelain skin. I’m riverside in Croatia with Selly, my best friend. I often get jealous of the way the sun’s rays turn her skin […]
Please, No Frozen Graveyard For Me
By Rose Willow Photos: Anthony Hutchins As another autumn approached and the otters splashed in the little cove in front of our house, and the sky turned crimson at dusk, Tony refilled our glasses with homemade blackberry wine, and brought up the […]
Cubs Fans
By Reid Eccles A computer monitor flips between different angles on what might be a forest floor, if it weren’t for the cement blocks enclosing it. There are logs, a pool of water, a wooden den. The screen flips again and a groggy black bear stands up, its motion having tripped the camera’s sensors. This video feed […]
Searching for Staqeya
By Shanon Fenske The 25-foot Amanda Anne plows through the frigid February waters of the Juan De Fuca Strait. Somewhere in the darkness ahead of us are islands inhabited by a wolf many in the Songhees First Nation believe is sacred. Campers were the first to report a lone wolf on Discovery Island, five km. east […]
Now Showing: The Future
By Antony Stevens In the back corner of the projection booth at IMAX Victoria is a rack of 70mm film reels, each weighing between 250 and 500 pounds. The largest is Interstellar which, at eight-feet wide, touches the brim of the platter it rests on. There are nearly 30 of these films, collected over the span of 10 years, sitting […]